Chapter 5
section five of bushido the soul of japan by inazzo nitobe this librivox recording is in the public domain the duty of loyalty and education and training of a samurai of the causes in comparison with which no life was too dear to sacrifice was the duty of loyalty which was the keystone making feudal virtues a symmetrical arch other virtues feudal morality shares in common with other systems of ethics with other classes of people but this virtue homage and fealty to a superior is its distinctive feature i am aware that personal fidelity is a moral adhesion existing among all sorts and conditions of men a gang of pickpockets owe allegiance to a fagin but it is only in the code of chivalrous honour that loyalty assumes paramount importance in spite of hegel's criticism that the fidelity of feudal vassals being an obligation to an individual and not to a commonwealth is a bond established on totally unjust principles footnote
philosophy of history english translation by sibry part four section two chapter one and foot A great compatriot of his made it his boast that personal loyalty was a German virtue. Bismarck had good reason to do so, not because the Troya he boasts of was the monopoly of his fatherland, or of any single nation or race, but because this favored fruit of chivalry lingers latest among the people where feudalism has lasted longest.
In America, where, quote, everybody is as good as anybody else, end quote, and, as the Irishman added, quote, better to, end quote, such exalted ideas of loyalty as we feel for our sovereign may be deemed, quote, excellent within certain bounds, end quote, but preposterous as encouraged among us. Montesquieu complained long ago that right on one side of the Pyrenees was wrong on the other, and the recent Dreyfus trial proved the truth of his remark, save that the Pyrenees were not the sole boundary beyond which French justice finds no accord. Similarly, loyalty, as we conceive it, may find few admirers elsewhere,
not because our conception is wrong, but because it is, I am afraid, forgotten, and also because we carry it to a degree not reached in any other country. Griffiths, Footnote, Religions of Japan, End Footnote, was quite right in stating that whereas in China Confucian ethics made obedience to parents the primary human duty, in Japan precedence was given to loyalty. At the risk of shocking some of my good readers, I will relate of one,
who could endure to follow a fallen lord, and who thus, as Shakespeare assures, earned a place in the story. The story is of one of the purest characters in our history, Michizane, who, falling a victim to jealousy and calumny, is exiled from the capital. Not content with this, his unrelenting enemies are now bent upon the extinction of his family. Strict search for his son, not yet grown, reveals the fact of his being secreted in a village school
kept by one Genzo, a former vassal of Michizane. When orders are dispatched to the schoolmaster to deliver the head of the juvenile offender on a certain day, his first idea is to find a suitable substitute for it. He ponders over his school lists, scrutinizes with careful eyes all the boys as they stroll into the classroom, but none among the children born of the soil bears the least resemblance to his protege. his despair however is but for a moment for behold a new scholar is announced a comely boy of the same age as his master's son escorted by a mother of noble mien
no less conscious of the resemblance between infant lord and infant retainer were the mother and the boy himself in the privacy of home both had laid themselves upon the altar the one his life the other her heart yet without a sign to the outer world unwitting of what had passed between them it is the teacher from whom comes the suggestion here then is the scapegoat the rest of the narrative may be briefly told on the day appointed arrives the officer commissioned to identify and receive the head of the youth will he be deceived by the false head the poor genzo's hand is on the hilt of the sword ready to strike a blow either at the man or at himself should the examination defeat his scheme the officer takes up the gruesome object before him goes calmly over each feature and in a deliberate business-like tone pronounces it genuine that evening in a lonely home awaits the mother we saw in the school does she know the fate of her child it is not for his return that she watches with eagerness for the opening of the wicket her father-in-law has been for a long time a recipient of mitizani's bounties
but since his banishment circumstances have forced her husband to follow the service of the enemy of his family's benefactor he himself could not be untrue to his own cruel master but his son could serve the cause of the grandsire's lord as one acquainted with the exile's family it was he who had been entrusted with the task of identifying the boy's head now the day's yea the life's hard work is done he returns home and as he crosses its threshold he accosts his wife saying quote, Rejoice, my wife, our darling son has proved of service to his lord, end quote. Quote, What an atrocious story, end quote, I hear my readers exclaim, quote, Parents deliberately sacrificing their own innocent child to save the life of another man's,
end quote. But this child was a conscious and willing victim. It is a story of vicarious death, as significant as, and not more revolting than, the story of Abraham's intended sacrifice of Isaac. In both cases it was obedience to the call of duty, utter submission to the command of a higher voice, whether given by a visible or an invisible angel, or heard by an outward or an inward ear. But I abstain from preaching.
The individualism of the West, which recognizes separate interests for father and son, husband and wife, necessarily brings into strong relief the duties owed by one to the other. But Bushido held that the interest of the family and of the members thereof is intact, one and inseparable. This interest is bound up with affection, natural, instinctive, irresistible. Hence, if we die for one we love with natural love, which animals themselves possess, what is that?
Quote, For if ye love them that love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? End quote. In his great history, Sanyo relates in touching language the heart struggle of Shigemori concerning his father's rebellious conduct. If I be loyal, my father must be undone. If I obey my father, my duty to my sovereign must go amiss. Poor Shigemori! We see him afterward praying with all his soul that kind heaven may visit him with death,
that he may be released from this world where it is hard for purity and righteousness to dwell. Many a Shigemori has his heart torn by the conflict between duty and affection. Indeed, neither Shakespeare nor the Old Testament itself contains an adequate rendering of ko, our conception of filial piety. And yet in such conflicts Bushido never wavered in its choice of loyalty.
Women, too, encouraged their offspring to sacrifice all for the king. Ever as resolute as Widow Wyndham and her illustrious consort, the samurai matron stood ready to give up her boys for the cause of loyalty. Since Bushido, like Aristotle and some modern sociologists, conceived the state as antedating the individual,
the latter being born into the former as part and parcel thereof, he must live and die for it or for the incumbent of its legitimate authority. Readers of Crito will remember the argument with which Socrates represents the laws of the city as pleading with him on the subject of his escape. Among others he makes them, the laws or the state, say,
Since you were begotten and nurtured and educated under us, dare you once to say you are not our offspring and servant, you and your fathers before you? These are words which do not impress us as anything extraordinary, for the same thing has long been on the lips of Bushido, with this modification, that the laws and the state were represented with us by a personal being. Loyalty is an ethical outcome of this political theory. I am not entirely ignorant of Mr. Spencer's view according to which political obedience, loyalty, is accredited with only a transitional function.
Footnote. Principles of Ethics. Volume 1, Part 2, Chapter 10. End footnote. It may be so. Sufficient unto the day is the virtue thereof. We may complacently repeat it, especially as we believe that day to be a long space of time during which so our national anthem says tiny pebbles grow into mighty rocks draped with moss We may remember at this juncture that even among so democratic a people as the English, quote, the sentiment of personal fidelity to a man and his posterity,
which their Germanic ancestors felt for their chiefs, has, as M. Bautmi recently said, only passed more or less into their profound loyalty to the race and blood of their princes, as evidenced in their extraordinary attachment to the dynasty, end quote. Political subordination, Mr. Spencer predicts, will give place to loyalty to the dictates of conscience. Suppose his induction is realized, will loyalty and its concomitant instinct of reverence disappear forever?
We transfer our allegiance from one master to another, without being unfaithful to either. From being subjects of a ruler that wields the temporal scepter, we become servants of the monarch who sits enthroned in the penetralia of our heart. A few years ago a very stupid controversy, started by the misguided disciples of Spencer, made havoc among the reading class of Japan. In their zeal to uphold the claim of the throne
to undivided loyalty, they charged Christians with treasonable propensities in that they avowed fidelity to their lord and master. They arrayed forth sophistical arguments without the wit of sophists, and scholastic tortuosities minus the niceties of the schoolmen. Little did they know that we can, in a sense, quote, serve two masters without holding to the one or despising the other, end quote, quote, rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the
things that are gods. Did not Socrates, all the while he unflinchingly refused to concede one iota of loyalty to his demon, obey with equal fidelity and equanimity the command of his earthly master, the state? His conscience he followed, alive, his country he served, dying. Alack, the day when a state grows so powerful as to demand of its citizens the dictates of their conscience. Bushido did not require us to make our conscience the slave of any lord or king.
Thomas Mowbray was a veritable spokesman for us when he said, quote, Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot. My life thou shalt command, but not my shame. The one my duty owes, but my fair name. Despite of death that lives upon my grave, to dark dishonor's use thou shalt not have. A man who sacrificed his own conscience
to the capricious will or freak or fancy of a sovereign was accorded a low place in the estimate of the precepts. Such a one was despised as Nei Xin, a cringeling who makes court by unscrupulous fawning, or as Chou Xin, a favorite who steals his master's affections
by means of servile compliance. These two species of subjects corresponding exactly to those which Ayago describes, the one a duteous and knee-crooking knave, doting on his own obsequious bondage, wearing out his time much like his master's ass, the other trimmed in forms and visages of duty, keeping yet his heart attending on himself. When a subject differed from his master, the loyal path for him to pursue was to use every available means to persuade him of his error,
as Kent did to King Lear. Failing in this, let the master deal with him as he wills. In cases of this kind, it was quite a usual course for the samurai to make the last appeal to the intelligence and conscience of his lord by demonstrating the sincerity of his words with the shedding of his own blood. Life being regarded as the means whereby to serve his master, and its ideal being set upon honor, the whole education and training of a samurai
were conducted accordingly. The first point to observe in knightly pedagogics was to build up character, leaving in the shade the subtler faculties of prudence, intelligence and dialectics. We have seen the important part aesthetic accomplishments played in his education. Indispensable as they were to a man of culture, they were accessories rather than essentials of samurai training. Intellectual superiority was, of course, esteemed, but the word
chi, which was employed to denote intellectuality, meant wisdom in the first instance, and placed knowledge only in a very subordinate place. The tripod that supported the framework of Bushido was said to be chi, jin, yu, respectively, wisdom, benevolence, and courage. A samurai was essentially a man of action. Science was without the pale of his activity. He took advantage of it insofar as it concerned his profession of arms. Religion and theology were relegated to the priests.
He concerned himself with them insofar as they helped to nourish courage. Like an English poet, the samurai believed, quote, "'Tis not the creed that saves the man, but it is the man that justifies the creed," end quote. Philosophy and literature formed the chief part of his intellectual training, but even in the pursuit of these it was not objective truth that he strove after. Literature was pursued mainly as a pastime, and philosophy as a practical aid in the formation
of character, if not for the exposition of some military or political problem. From what has been said, it will not be surprising to note that the curriculum of studies, according to the pedagogics of Gushido, consisted mainly of the following, fencing, archery, jiu-jitsu or yawara, horsemanship, the use of the spear, tactics, calligraphy, ethics, literature, and history. Of these, jiu-jitsu and calligraphy may require a few words of explanation. Great
stress was laid on good writing, probably because our logograms, partaking as they do of the nature of pictures, possess artistic value, and also because chirography was accepted as indicative of one's personal character. Jiu-jitsu may be briefly defined as an application of anatomical knowledge to the purpose of offense or defense. It differs from wrestling in that it does not depend upon muscular strength. It differs from other forms of attack in that it uses no weapon.
Its feat consists in clutching or striking such part of the enemy's body as will make him numb and incapable of resistance. Its object is not to kill, but to incapacitate one for action for the time being. A subject of study which one would expect to find in military education, and which is rather conspicuous by its absence in the Bushido course of instruction, is mathematics. This, however, can be readily explained in part by the fact that feudal warfare was not carried
on with scientific precision. Not only that, but the whole training of the samurai was unfavorable to fostering numerical notions. Chivalry is uneconomical. It boasts of penury. It says with ventidious that, quote, ambition, the soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss than gain which darkens him, end quote. Don Quixote takes more pride in his rusty spear and skin and bone horse than in gold and lands, and a samurai is in hearty sympathy with his exaggerated
confrere of La Mancha. He disdains money itself, the art of making or hoarding it. it is to him veritably filthy lucre the hackneyed expression to describe the decadence of an age is that the civilians loved money and the soldiers feared death niggardliness of gold and of life excites as much disapprobation as their lavish use is panegarized less than all things says a current precept men must grudge money it is by riches that wisdom is hindered hence children were brought up with utter disregard of economy it was considered bad taste to speak of it and ignorance of the value of different coins was a token of good breeding knowledge of numbers was indispensable in the mustering of forces as well as in the distribution of benefices and fiefs but the counting of money was left to meaner hands
in many feudatories public finance was administered by a lower kind of samurai or by priests every thinking bushi knew well enough that money formed the sinews of war but he did not think of raising the appreciation of money to a virtue it is true that thrift was enjoined by bushido but not for economical reasons so much as for the exercise of abstinence luxury was thought the greatest menace to manhood and severest simplicity was required of the warrior class sumptuary laws being enforced in many of the clans we read that in ancient rome the farmers of revenue and other financial agents were gradually raised to the rank of knights the state thereby showing its appreciation of their service and of the importance of money itself how closely this was connected with the luxury and avarice of the romans may be imagined not so with the precepts of knighthood these persisted in systematically regarding finance as something low low as compared with moral and intellectual vocations money and the love of it being thus diligently ignored bushido itself could long remain free from a thousand and one evils of which money is the root
this is sufficient reason for the fact that our public men have long been free from corruption but alas how fast plutocracy is making its way in our time and generation the mental discipline which would nowadays be chiefly aided by the study of mathematics was supplied by literary exegesis and deontological discussions very few abstract subjects troubled the mind of the young the chief aim of their education being as i have said decision of character people whose minds were simply stored with information found no great admirers Of the three services of studies that Bacon gives, for delight, ornament, and ability, Bushido had decided preference for the last, where their use was, quote, in judgment and the disposition of business, end quote. Whether it was for the disposition of public business or for the exercise of self-control,
it was with a practical end in view that education was conducted. Quote, Learning without thought, said Confucius, is labor lost. Thought without learning is perilous. End quote.
When character and not intelligence, when the soul and not the head, is chosen by a teacher for the material to work upon and to develop, his vocation partakes of a sacred character. Quote, It is the parent who has born me.
It is the teacher who makes me man. End quote. With this idea, therefore, the esteem in which one's preceptor was held was very high. A man to evoke such confidence and respect from the young
must necessarily be endowed with superior personality without lacking erudition. He was a father to the fatherless and an advisor to the erring. Quote, thy father and thy mother, end quote. So runs our maxim, quote, are like heaven and earth, thy teacher and thy lord are like the sun and moon, end quote. The prison system of paying for every sort of service, was not in vogue among the adherents of Bushido. It believed in a service
which can be rendered only without money and without price. Spiritual service, be it of priest or teacher, was not to be repaid in gold or silver, not because it was valueless, but because it was invaluable. Here the non-arithmetical honor instinct of Bushido taught a truer lesson than modern political economy, for wages and salaries can be paid only for services whose results are definite, tangible, and measurable, whereas the best service done in education,
namely in soul development, and this includes the services of a pastor, is not definite, tangible, or measurable. Being immeasurable, money, the ostensible measure of value, is of inadequate use. Usage sanctioned that pupils brought to their teachers money or goods at different seasons of the year. But these were not payments, but offerings, which indeed were welcome to the recipients, as they were usually men of stern caliber, boasting of honorable penury,
too dignified to work with their hands, and too proud to beg. They were grave personifications of high spirits undaunted by adversity. They were an embodiment of what was considered as an end of all learning, and were thus a living example of that discipline of disciplines, self-control, which was universally required of samurai. End of section 5.
